Latin poet presents a novel inspired by Selena Quintanilla

The poet Melissa Lozada-Oliva casts a spell to revive the American singer Selena quintanilla in his first book, the novel in verse Dreaming of you, with which he exorcises his own fears and insecurities in love and sex.

In her debut feature, the young New York-based writer casts herself as the lead, a poet mired in loneliness and heartbreak who decides to bring back to life her youthful myth, the queen of Tex-Mex she listened to when her sister would play her music at home and she would watch the movie about the Latin star starring Jennifer Lopez.

In an interview with Efe, Lozada-Oliva qualifies Dreaming of you, titled in honor of Selena’s fifth and posthumous album, as a “Haunted book” of visceral verses with which he proposes to “confront” all his anguish, his desires and the mistakes of his life.

Sex and shame

Because her literary self and her adventure with Selena Quintanilla serve as a common thread for the author to talk about herself, her life, her family and her fears, especially those related to sex and romantic relationships.

“Sex can quickly turn into something very scary,” He said about a part of the book where love is spoken more, in which he wanted to sneak between the “Space between love and horror” and its direct relationship with “shame.”

But it is also a reflection of Latinas in general, with the enormous weight that family and religion have for many of them.

And again, sex and the moral obligation that comes from that “Macho feeling” that young women should not have sex and should remain “Virgin and pure as much as possible.”

“And Selena explored that too, with her music and her body, with everything that spoke of desire or how much her body showed”, said about an artist who, he estimated, was a revolution in the United States for her style at a time, the early years of the 1990s, when she was almost the only Hispanic singer who boasted of “Latin body”.

Selena as an empowering role

And that, she said, marked that generation of Latina women who used her figure to empower themselves, turning her into a myth that has remained 26 years after her death, even for young “millennials” like the author, who have admired her since years ago.

“I don’t know why some people stay with you forever, but it’s been like that with her”, said about this figure “so charismatic” and talented. “There was something tempting about her, because she was rebellious, she was different.”

And here her religious education also comes into play, marked by the influence of her parents, of Colombian and Guatemalan origins, and when she stopped believing in God when her parents divorced when she was 12 years old, although she continued to maintain her devotion to others ” gods “like Selena herself.

In the book, published on October 26, Lozada-Oliva takes the resurrected Selena Quintanilla to a Halloween party where everyone is dressed up as the Latin star and no one realizes who she really is, although she finally ends up shining with its own light.

The author, who studied poetry at New York University and is part of the musical band Meli and the Specs, recognized that I was “obsessed” with that feeling of going unnoticed, but that in the end is recognized for being who she is.

Explained that Dreaming of you -in which they also appear as characters Abraham Quintanilla, father of Selena, and Yolanda Saldívar, who murdered the singer on March 31, 1995 when the interpreter was 23 years old- arose at a time when she was in love and wrote some love poems that, she realized, resembled the compositions of the Texan herself, something that connected her even more to the singer of bidi bidi good good.

It is a book written in different planes, both stylistic and format, which reflects the author herself, who it was recognized as “chaotic” as a work that is now in its second edition.

But before “breaking the rules,” he explained, he wanted to know the traditional norms of poetry and do it thoroughly. (I)